A frightening and familiar contrast continues in the United States as the concepts of a free democracy are thrust upon the working and middle class and we are constantly convinced by our representatives that our society grows closer to equality and a better life for all citizens. At the same time, those without capital and control have limited access to the government which represents them, prices are rising, the working and middle class are working longer hours, in deeper debt, saving less, and cannot afford necessary healthcare. While policy makers convince us that things are only getting better, the reality on the ground (in the factories and ghettos) offers a strikingly different prediction.

The concept that our American democratic society offers the quintessential model for equal treatment is often repeated without consideration in the classrooms of public schools and from the highest levels of government. “The laws of this nation the good heart of this nation are on the side of equality,” President George W. Bush noted, marking the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (STEVENSON 1). Yet, a brief glance at the varied statistics of wealth and power in this country bring light to the serious flaws in the President’s statement. It isn’t the laws or heart of the country that the working and middle classes need fear. The system of power and control, and the truer symbol of the American reality, can be found in the widening disparity in the distribution of wealth and income which continues to separate the haves from the have-nots in America.

Read more in Economics

« Is America Becoming More Unequal?

Exchange Rate Systems and The Cost and Benefit of Each Exchange Rate System for The Economy as a Whole »

According to a CNN report, in 2007 “the income gap between the wealthiest and the poorest Americans grew to its widest level since the 1920s,” while at the same time, “the bottom half of working Americans...

YOU MAY ALSO FIND THESE DOCUMENTS HELPFUL

...﻿Economic Inequality in America
The Occupy movement gained fame in September 2011 with a slogan that brought together a wide range of people, “We are the 99 percent.” The goal of the group is to get rid of economic inequality throughout the world. The group sparked a change in the way many people look at the way the world is. Wealth inequality is a word used to describe how money and assets are distributed among a group of people, in...

...society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension from even before the French Revolution and spawns numerous other social issues in a society. In the more recent Occupy Movement, beginning in 2011, protesters used income inequality as a...

...Although Latin America has faced many social, political, and economic issues within the last three centuries, inequality remains one of the most important, historical, and omnipresent aspects of the region’s culture. As Europeans took over Latin America during the time of colonization, they implemented many elitist social structures that have held strong and are evident today (Harris). Income inequality is the most visible and greatest...

...Inequality: Causes and Consequences
Marcus Robinson
Florida A&amp; M University
Inequality is the lack of equality, opportunity, treatment, or status. Inequality has been going on since World War II and began to rise in the mid 1970s. Many people in the world from the United States to the Caribbean have dealt with this problem. In this article it discusses the causes and consequences of inequality researches and examinations of...

...getting fair treatment. For example, Seattle says in his essay that when most Native Americans die, they will become a “myth among white men” (Seattle 394). This shows that Native Americans were not cared for in society once the Europeans moved to America. They clearly were not treated equally because they were neglected, which is why they would become a “myth.” Not only were Native Americans lacking opportunity, but blacks were too. When
referring to a library, Wright said...

...﻿
Western Connecticut State University
Income Inequality in America
“The proliferate gap separating the penniless from the gilded”
Kristen Dakin
ECO 101: Principles of Microeconomics
Professor David Barber
April 7th, 2014
The exponentially growing gap that separates the affluent from the rest of society in America has become a truly daunting statistic. According to data collected by the IRS, the World...

...300265377
Why is Socioeconomic Inequality so High in Latin America?
GEOG212
Why is Socioeconomic Inequality so High in Latin America?
Introduction
One of the most prominent features of Latin American countries is their collective characteristic of extensive and pervasive socioeconomic inequality (Huber 2009). Latin America has been described as...

...Gerontology
Education inequality in pakistan
Educational opportunities available in Pakistan are of a very diverse nature. There are deep divisions based on regional disparities, rural-urban location, gender, income and wealth of parents, medium of instruction in schools, curricula and syllabi, ideological divides, type of schools, and access to extra coaching (shadow education), among others. In the last couple of decades as income and wealth inequalities...